Business Success: Building Strong Teams
Most of the best business thinking and writing focuses exclusively on large corporations or start-up entrepreneurship. The importance of building strong teams is one of those rare universal ideas. Whether you run a tech giant like Google, an industrial giant like General Electric, or a hamburger franchise; you need to build a strong team to maximize the potential of your company.
My biggest lesson in team building came when I was promoted to director of operations at a national chain of Italian restaurants. After unprecedented success as General Manager of the company, I was assigned responsibility for eight restaurants spread across two Southern California counties. The restaurants averaged about $3 million in sales each. Five of the units were operating above average and three were dramatically underperforming.
Being new to managing multiple drives, I instinctively focused on struggling drive issues. After a month of micromanaging these three units from when they opened to when they closed, I finally figured it out. Although the units were improving, they would never succeed with the existing general managers.
The contrast between the managers of my best restaurants and those of the weakest units was striking. I trained my best managers in sales development activities, cost control techniques, and nuances of excellent customer service. Underperforming managers had to be constantly directed toward basic ordering, scheduling, and employee relations practices.
The worst thing about the failed operators was the fact that they seemed perfectly comfortable with being constantly told what to do. Had it been allowed, this relationship would have continued indefinitely and caused me to neglect my important responsibility to grow the entire region.
Fortunately, with input from the HR department and more experienced managers, I replaced all three managers over a 90-day period. The results were amazing. Within a year, he was overseeing the top-performing region in the western division. Sales, profits, employee morale, operating standards and manager bonuses were at all-time highs.
All the transformation and long-term success of the region taught me three important principles about team building that have been reinforced throughout my career:
1. Put the aces in their place: As an entrepreneur or corporate leader, it’s very tempting to do it all and control every detail. It’s hard for some to accept that they can actually hire and train competent people to do things better than they could. Leaders who realize this can put their own talent to good use. Bestselling business author Jim Collins uses the analogy of “Getting the right team on the bus and putting them in the right seats.”
2. Recruit the best talent you can afford: Obviously, your business model and budget determine how much you can spend on talent. I believe that one should seek to have the best people within their budget. Settling for “C” performance when “A” prospects are available is a mistake. Granted, “A” players are harder to find and generally require a different style of leadership, but the return on effort is worth it.
3. Create a development-oriented culture: The military is excellent at this. In the military, lieutenants train and are expected to become captains, who are then expected to become majors or colonels. Jack Welch points out in his best-selling autobiographical Straight From The Gut that for many years General Electric maintained hiring and promotion practices that pushed its best talent through the company. Similarly, a small restaurant owner must position dishwashers to become prep cooks, prep cooks to become line cooks, and the most talented line cooks to become managers. of kitchen.
All of this means that leaders can stay focused on the big picture and have the freedom to delve into details as needed, which is far better than drowning in low-impact details.